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Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 17, 2015

week of November 9 | snapshot

Last week was our Clothing Unit.
To start off our unit we gathered information about what the students already know about clothes and recorded our ideas on a KWL chart. 

Some things to learn about clothes if you are interested in this unit: What are the different kinds of clothes? How do people make clothes? How is cloth made? How do clothes get to be so many different colors? What special clothes do some people wear for their jobs? Who decides what clothes should look like? How do clothes get to the stores? How do our clothes compare to clothing in the past? You can see above what my class wanted to learn.

One of our projects:

Students chose one article of clothing from one of the categories we discussed and drew a picture of it. Then cut it out and taped the drawing to chart paper. 







We also described the colors, styles, and textures of different clothing worn to school one day.
Questions I asked: What do you notice about these clothes? How are some of the clothes the same? How are some of them different from the others? How did you decide which clothes to wear to school today? What do you notice about the materials from which the clothes are made? What are your favorite kinds of clothes? Why? 
I asked the students how they wanted to graph their clothes that day. They decided as a group to graph them by color, so that's what we did.











Another day we read clothing labels to find out where clothes were made and locate on a map. This was especially fun to the students because they liked to see who was the closest to home and who was the furthest. (Grady was closest ;) )


We also read the clothing labels and made a tally to see what our clothes were made of. A lot of the students had never heard of polyester and thought it was a funny word. Ms. Angie said she could tell we had been studying about clothing materials that day because she had been hearing a lot of discussion going on at the snack table that day. :)

In our research, we learned that plastic bottles can be recycled to make polyester when we watched this video. How cool is that?!
Fun fact: One of the most famous pieces of polyester clothing is the white suit worn by John Travolta worn in the movie Saturday Night Fever. It sold at auction for $145,000.




Our new math game is called Bean Out. The students took turns rolling a die and would cover the amount of dots with a counter of their color. If the number was already covered, their turn was over. Once the board was covered, they would count their color of counters to see who won!









We also finally got around to graphing our Cheetos Bag of Bones from Halloween.
Better late than never, right?!?!
Anywho, Cheetos makes this great bag of skeleton shaped Cheetos each year for Halloween and I made up a graphing sheet last year to go with it. I pass out a handful to each student in a Ziploc bag and they have to graph what they get before they eat the pieces. There are hands/feet, rib cage, arms/legs, and skull pieces. :)




The students also put together and learned to read  Wishy Washy, Wishy Washy.



Our Shared Reading book this week was Shopping by Joy Cowley. 



Libby turned 6 last Tuesday!
She waited to celebrate with her BFF, Stori, on Wednesday who turned 5 :)
AND they dressed up as Elsa and Anna!








limited centers:

blocks- add outlines of clothing for students to fill in with blocks, make patterns with blocks, etc.

dramatic play- add props for washing, drying, sorting, folding, and hanging clothes

art- add laminated patterns of clothing for students to trace and be a clothing designer

math- add different sizes of clothing for sorting

discovery- fabric samples for students to feel and observe textures; add magnifying glasses




Thursday, November 5, 2015

week of October 26 | snapshot

What a wild, spooktacular week!!!
This is going to be a long post so hold on to your witch's hat!!!

One of our morning journal topics was
"Children should be allowed to..."
I thought these answers would amuse some of you ;)


We learned how to count syllables in our first and middle names.






And we began working on our pumpkin books. Our study theme was Pumpkins.




Last week and this week, we have had very special visitors coming to read to our class from the Bright Minds Reading Program
Ms. Debbie read to us during lunch.


And Ms. Gail read to us in our classroom.

Our Write the Room this week was all about Halloween. 
Here the students are using "pumpkin" to Write the Room.




And our emergent reader for the week was Five Little Pumpkins.
{click here for the free printable}



We rarely do cookie cutter crafts but we couldn't pass up making these spiral ghosts to hang in our room last week!





Ms. Amaal taught her Technology in Education lesson in our room and it was all about shadows.


The students compared their shadows and placed each other in order of tallest shadow.



Then they had fun making shadow puppets!



Ms. Amaal traced their shadows for them so they could see it better.


Then they got to make their very own shadow puppets and put on a skit!





Then, Ms. Sonya came and taught us all about the life cycle of a pumpkin.
She read them a book and showed them pictures of each stage and even brought her own pumpkin along for students to look in and see the pulp and seeds.









Then, they drew their favorite stage in the life cycle.





And lastly, they used puppets while Miss Sonya read a great story about the life cycle of a pumpkin seed!




We PINKED OUT the school last Wednesday for Breast Cancer Awareness!
Ms. Kim made ribbons and I painted ribbons on faces.


We had a wonderful lesson on sea turtles by the Blackbelt Museum.




The students were able to observe sea turtle fossils.





Then each student colored a scute or body part for our very own sea turtle!














The students also learned about sea turtle eggs and that they are the size of ping pong balls.



Then we all took a pledge to pick up litter and throw our trash away properly to protect sea turtles.


Our next stop was the endangered species presentation.



College students dressed in character and told us why they were endangered, interesting facts, and how we can help.



Then we got to look at some really cool animals.
First up was the red-eared slider.




This picture is of a coyote skull.


And we saw a crocodile skull, too!



This was the clue to our last animal...



Yep, a corn snake!!!







Ms. Kim brought the class some spider cookies for snack!



Dr. Minear's class took over SWAP this time.
Every October we have a Mad Scientist SWAP.

Dem Bones Room

After reading Shake Dem Halloween Bones, the students danced to Dem Bones on Youtube. 
They learned the names of the longest and shortest bones in the body 
and then had a fun "femur" for snack!










Torn Paper Halloween Pictures room

The students listened to Shape by Shape and recalled all the shapes they saw in the book. 
Then they got to make torn paper pictures!






Growing Monsters room

The students enjoyed listening to Monster Trouble being read 
and as you can see our big friends even dressed like mad scientists!
The students learned that their special ingredients (vinegar and baking soda) made a great reaction when put together in their bottles. So much so, it made their monster balloons grow and expand!
Then they danced around the room doing the Monster Mash!












Crayon Resist Halloween Pictures

After the students listened to The Very Busy Spider
the students made their own gigantic web with yarn.
They tried to catch a few friends but the only one who ended up getting caught in their web was ME!
#happyclassrooms
Then they had fun watching the magic of crayon resist!














Friday was a BIG day. 
We headed out that morning to go trick or treating at Lyon Hall and Bibb Graves.





The faculty dressed up and decorated their doors just for us!
















Ms. Annie and Miss Davida had a fun activity planned for us, too!





Even some of our education majors got in on the fun!









We saw Rapunzel and Pascal!

 






When we got back, we had some fun with pumpkin math and carved our jack-o-lantern!











Friday afternoon before our party, we had fun trunk or treating with UWA sororities, fraternities, and other volunteers.










Then it was party time! 


 




We finally got to put together our ant farm!
Our ants were dead when they got here the first time during our ant unit. :(
No matter now because the students are loving observing them!



Libby lost a tooth, too!!!


limited centers:

literacy- candy corn alphabet


dramatic play- the students put together a Pumpkin Stand with my artificial pumpkins and the cash register. They made a sign and decided on the price list.







art- I added orange, green, and black paint for free painting. 
I also added orange, purple, and black paint with Halloween cookie cutters




computer-




Virtual Make a Pumpkin Game http://www.abcya.com/make_a_pumpkin.htm



math- Add Em Up Pumpkins 


blocks- build pumpkin patches




dry erase jack-o-lanterns


discovery- play-dough and Halloween cookie cutters



Jaida took a picture of her candy corn jack-o-lantern in the math center


Charlie made a Tt circle map in the writing center one morning :)



Bennett's robot


Libby's zombie